The Bauchi State Governor, Isa Yuguda, Tuesday went tough on civil servants as he publicly sent out two of them from the multi-purpose hall for acts of misconduct and indiscipline during the celebration of the civil service day in the state. The governor, who was furious at the civil servants for showing outward disrespect for the ethics of the civil service code and conduct, warned that his government would not tolerate any form of laxity, indiscipline and corruption on the part of any civil servant because “it is striving towards a result oriented civil service

.” According to him, “since the inception of my administration, I ensure that 80 per cent of the generated revenue for the state is channeled towards improving productivity in the civil service and 20 per cent is channelled towards the common man, who is unemployed. So, I expect much from civil servants in the state.

“The government introduced SERVICOM into the civil service to inject professionalism and ethics into the service, but it beats my imagination that some civil servants still do not have regards for principles of civil service.” The governor, who noted that civil servants were teammates in his administration, however, said his government would not hesitate to punish any civil servant, who violated the rules and regulations governing the service.

“Every profession has its ethics and culture, so if any civil servant in the state, no matter how highly placed he is, violates the rules of the services, he must be punished. In this way, we can enforce orderliness in the service and it will serve as a deterrent to others,” he said. Yuguda also warned against discrimination and god-fatherism within the services, saying hard, work, commitment and dedication to official duties must be rewarded at all time. He lamented that in spite of the state government’s intervention in the education sector, students still performed very poorly, attributing the situation to unqualified teachers in the state.

“The state government encountered problems with the secondary and primary school teachers in the state because we discovered that some of them had fake certificates, which made them incompetent in teaching. The government instituted a committee to screen them but some of them started objecting and embarking on strikes.

“Going by the report of the committee, the state government disengaged 5,300 teachers, but after several appeal from stakeholders in the state, we engaged only 2,400 of them,” Yuguda said. In his address, the state Head of Service (HoS), Abdon Gin, urged civil servants to imbibe the virtues of attitudinal change towards official duties for a vibrant civil service, adding that hard work and commitment will be rewarded.